| PRESS RELEASE
Naples, 4th January 2002
5th EDITION
PREMIO MEDITERRANEO
1. THE PREVIOUS EDITIONS
The “Premio Mediterraneo” has been instituted by the
Fondazione Laboratorio Mediterraneo.
“The Prize “Mediterraneo di Pace” was awarded
in Naples to the President of the Macedonian Republic Kiro Gligorov
in 1998, to King Hussein of Jordan in 1999, to King Hassan II of
Morocco in the year 2000 and to Leah Rabin in 2001.
“The Prize “Mediterraneo di Cultura” was awarded
in Naples to King Juan Carlos I of Spain in 1998, to Minister Lamberto
Dini in 1999, to the Republic of Malta in the year 2000 and to Cardinal
Roger Etchegaray in 2001.
“The Prize “Mediterraneo d’Arte” was awarded
in Naples to the singers Noah and Nabil in 2001.
2. 2002 EDITION
“The Prize “Mediterraneo di Pace e Cultura” is
awarded to the memory of the journalists Maria Grazia Cutuli and
Julio Fuentes, recently assassinated in Afghanistan. The awards
are received by Monica Garcia (Julio Fuentes’ wife) and Donata
Cutuli (Maria Grazia Cutuli’s sister).
“The Prize “Mediterraneo d’Arte” is awarded
to Moni Ovadia. The award is received by the artist himself.
“The Special Prize “Mediterraneo Diplomazia” is
awarded to Paolo Pucci di Benisichi (Ambassador of Italy to Spain)
and to Nehad Abdel Latif (Ambassador of Egypt to Italy). The award
is received by the two Ambassadors themselves.
“The Special Prize “Mediterraneo Informazione”
is awarded to the daily newspapers “El Mundo” and “Corriere
della Sera” and to the journalist Vittorio Nisticò.
The award is received by Ferruccio de Bortoli, Pedro J. Ramirez
and Vittorio Nisticò.
“The Special Prize “Mediterraneo Istituzioni”
is awarded to Antonio Bassolino (President of Regione Campania).
The award is received by President Bassolino himself.
“The Special Prize “Delfino d’Argento” is
awarded to the memory of Paolo Bufalini and Marcello Gigante (Founder
Members of the Accademia del Mediterraneo). The award is received
by their wives Maria Bufalini and Valeria Lanzara.
3. THE EVENT
The event will be held on Friday, January 4th 2002, at 5:00 p.m.,
at the Teatrino di Corte of the Royal Palace in Naples (Piazza del
Plebiscito). On that occasion, the following will take place:
“Presentation, for the first time, of the Mediterranean Anthem,
composed by Maestro Betta, accepted by the various Countries and
performed by the Chorus and the Polyphonic Orchestra of the Musical
Academy “Enrico Caruso”.
“Presentation of the Maison de la Méditerranée,
an institution representing the Euro-Mediterranean Countries, whose
Central Office will be established in Naples.
“Institution of the “classic” section of the Mediterranean
Library, dedicated to Marcello Gigante.
4. THE REASONS FOR AWARDS
“Premio Mediterraneo di pace e di cultura 2002
to the memory of Maria Grazia Cutuli and Julio Fuentes
The war. Tangle of faults and passions, infamies and grandeurs.
Like a tear in that tissue which - millennium by millennium, from
the first ancient forefather to the dawning of that reflection and
consciousness establishing rules and laws aimed at restraining the
instinct, repressing selfishness, building up a concept of Good,
tying in the mutual solidarity through basic and shared values,
making us less transient in the huge sea of Being thank to its enduring
trace – is restoring in the present, endures in the future
and represents an identity higher than the biological one.
A tear in which the tragically established civilization is a bit
uncertain and totters in its struggle against Violence.
And they were there, war correspondents, with no hate or party,
witnessing courage and cowardice, examples of compassion or abuse,
generosity or vileness, without prejudices, looking for that truth
that each of the opponents twists. Over there, to provide on the
basis of that truth a better understanding of the litigants, the
suffering to which both are subjected, discuss opposite certainties
and find the way to a brand new comprehension enabled to stop the
conflict and establish a brand new and fair peace. For such comprehension,
for such better and more human future, over there: tenacious, unremitting,
undaunted. Without support, except the one provided by the newspapers
which sent them on a mission that is harder than the fight itself
and almost always obscure. There, unarmed ones among the armed ones,
serene among passions, audacious but not bold, more resolute than
the fighters themselves. There, always a step forward and where
the battle is enraging, firm and determined. To their self sacrifice,
like Maria Grazia Cutuli and Julio Fuentes, whose maimed bodies
and broken phones are returned today.
But their voice, we are listening to today, did not break nor their
message which we are echoing here on their behalf.
***
“Premio Mediterraneo d’Arte 2002
to Moni Ovadia
The search for news in life, custom, thought, which has been the
dynamic strength of the Western World since its birth, has been
accelerating in “modernity”. Through its impact, “modernity”
brings turbulence to societies which have strictly preserved their
traditions in ideas and customs as well as in the ways of social
order and even in their artistic, literary and linguistic forms.
This turbulence is different from invasions and wars that suddenly
enrage but quickly are appeased, because it hardly calms down, since
“modernity” opposes itself violently to conventions
and habits, routs established economies, imposes to break the tissue
in which everyone is closed and safe, blocked but stable, and frees
the individuals pushing them towards perspectives projected in nothing.
Deep breaking, unprepared and unexpected, generating hopes which
are disregarded, bearer of an unreadable message. All over the not
Western world, particularly the Muslim one, which does not recognize
itself even in the promises of the Greek philosophy that has fed
the Western civilization and that Islamism itself had partly returned
with its falsafa, the consequences of the impact are crushing and
provoke oppositions which cling to the past. In such a preclusion
and violence, the task of those who try to start a mutual comprehension
and dialogue is hard.
Moni Ovadia has devoted himself to this task with the burst and
the passion of art. An enduring research and creative work, which
has made Arab and Sephard carols of the XIII and XIV centuries come
to a new and original life, recalling the common roots of those
cultures that are used today as reasons for conflict among peoples
which, on the contrary, cannot have their revival without a context
of new collaboration and harmony.
***
“Premio Speciale Mediterraneo Diplomazia 2002
Nehad Abdel Latif
Ambassador of Egypt to Italy.
By his enduring and patient work, he has been building, year by
year, a solid and long dialogue between Italy and Egypt as the basis
of a mutual higher and deeper knowledge of the societies comparing
themselves on the Mediterranean shores. He has untiringly highlighted
the different aspects of those cultures which have been following
one another in Egypt and contributed in granting a richer and deeper
dimension to the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
***
Paolo Pucci di Benisichi
Italian Ambassador to Spain.
Reconnecting the shared and very tangled history of two cultures
and peoples, the Ambassador Paolo Pucci di Benisichi devoted his
careful and cautious work, in this special moment when Spain and
Italy are following one upon the other at the presidency of the
European Union, a profundity and influence enabled to consolidate
shared points of view and work, contributing in this way to the
foundation, upon steady cultural roots, of the Process of Barcelona
for the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
***
“Premio Speciale Mediterraneo Informazione 2002
Corriere della Sera (Italy)
Following Albertini’s tradition, the Corriere della Sera
has kept a perfect level-headedness among opposite and conflicting
passions and ideologies, in order to represent the events in the
most unbiased light, which improves their comprehension, and enables
to set them in a constructive reflection.
Special correspondents have travelled all over the world, sometimes
with no return, and the editorial staff has granted its contribution
by its diligent, patient, more concerted and more anonymous work
to this aim.
El Mundo (Spain)
Journalism has become an essential need. It includes, among other
things, efforts and sacrifices. Sacrifice is sometimes extreme and
it deserves our deepest acknowledgement.
This award to “El Mundo” represents the expression of
acknowledgement to a newspaper which, with the recent sacrifice
of Julio Fuentes, has shown how difficult performing an overriding
need of our world can be: being informed, that means above all being
aware in transparency.
Vittorio Nisticò (Italy)
Journalism follows and tells historical and everyday events. Rarely
a newspaper has become an integral part of history.
Notwithstanding, this happened to the “L’Ora”,
Palermo and Italy's prestigious newspaper, under the long direction
of Vittorio Nisticò.
It represents an example in the Italian and Mediterranean history
of journalism.
With his recent book “Accadeva in Sicilia: gli anni ruggenti
dell’ ‘Ora’ di Palermo”, published by Sellerio,
Nisticò provides a convincing testimony about a troubled
season of our recent history.
***
“Premio Speciale Mediterraneo Istituzioni 2002
to Antonio Bassolino
Assuming the government of the Regione Campania, Antonio Bassolino
instituted a Councillorship for the Relations with the Mediterranean
Countries.
As well as an instrument of exchanges and agreements, it is first
of all a symbol and an admonition. Symbol and admonition of a political
trend which is fully aware of the millennium turning point and has
felt that Naples, Campania and Italy itself cannot have a future
outside the fabric in which they have been building through conflicts,
encounters, exchanges and mingling, a great and specific Euro-Mediterranean
union the whole Europe has to turn to in order to strengthen and
develop the basic values of its identity, which have emerged from
the synthesis that have been following one another in the Mediterranean.
But it is also a concrete action which makes true the century-old
tradition of a Region that lies in the centre of the Mediterranean
and cannot retrieve the international meaning it had in the greatest
moments of its past without turning this geographical centre into
a political and cultural one. In the first place, a centre of comprehension
and agreement, which Antonio Bassolino meant to highlight proposing,
among other things, the building of a Mosque aimed at affirming
the respect towards different historical consciences. Then, and
above all, establishing in Naples the Central Office of the “Common
House” where all Mediterranean peoples can find their representation
and expression. This house, the Maison de la Méditerranée,
is the essential step in order to build up a pacified Mediterranean,
and that Euro-Mediterranean integration, which today seems to be
an illusion just as the European Union seemed to be an impractical
thing in the first half of the 20th century.
Antonio Bassolino has understood the strength of this brand new
vision and through it he has granted a high level to regional politics,
anticipating the only line that can lead Italy to its right place
in the concert of the Mediterranean nations.
***
“Delfino d’Argento” 2002
to the memory of Paolo Bufalini
History has known several personalities who held an extraordinary
role in the political events which mark the life of a State, even
though they were not in the limelight of the media. Paolo Bufalini
is one of those personalities for the following reasons: for his
contribution, during the 30s, in the institution of the Roman antifascist
group, one of the most important and active groups since it gathered
young intellectuals who held an important role in the cultural and
political scene after the war; for his contribution to the Italian
resistance in Yugoslavia; as promoter, after the liberation, of
the Movimento Autonomista e Meridionalista, in Sicily and in the
South, in the struggle for the agricultural reform and the Country
modernization; as the strong and wise brain working for the renewal
of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), for the union of the Left
wing, for drawing together all the democratic forces. He tackled
all these subjects with a high political vision, going beyond the
social and party borders, with a great statesman attitude, like
Cavour. In such a frame we have to consider the amazing work performed
by Bufalini in outlining a foreign politics based on détente,
mutual comprehension, friendship among the Mediterranean peoples,
and his intense commitment in granting religious peace, improving
the relationship between Italy and Vatican, working at a renewal
of the Concordat. And he performed such a work being a layman, convinced
that the State laicity and the respect for the religious conscience
of individuals and communities could defeat the fundamentalisms
which have been causing bloodshed all over the world for centuries.
Bufalini was also a serious scholar of Greek and Latin and a scrupolous
translator of Horace, telling us that the tangle between culture
and politics is essential in order to make the public commitment
actually noble and effective, to improve one’s own country
and the mutual knowledge of peoples.
***
“Delfino d’Argento” 2002
to the memory of Marcello Gigante
During the transformation period that started after the Second World
War, Marcello Gigante, as Carducci had done earlier, voiced the
relationship between ancient culture and modern conscience. Reflecting
upon Herodotus’ texts, he interpreted the historic lines of
the classic world in the mark of Nomos Basileus, the sovereignty
of the law. Translator of Diogenes Laertius and Director of the
series “La Scuola di Platone” and “La scuola di
Epicuro”, he studied in depth ancient philosophy, specially
Epicurus and Philodemus of Gadaras, through the analysis of the
Herculaneum papyri. His essays upon Leopardi, Settembrini, Quasimodo
and the classic culture during the XIX and XX centuries are dedicated
to the relationship between ancient and modern cultures. He was
editor at the “Parola del Passato”, director of the
“Studi di Filologia Classica”, national President of
the Associazione Italiana di Cultura Classica.
His publications, more than 700, have always provided meaningful
points of view.
Among his works, it is worth mentioning “Le Elleniche di Ossirinco”,
“Nomos Basileus”, “Civiltà delle forme
letterarie nell’antica Pompei”, “Classico e mediazione”.
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